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After being pressured by wholesalers to raise their celebrity weekly prices, Bauer Publishing took the lead and instituted the price increases.

One report says when their "In Touch" and "Life & Style" increased from $1.00 to $2.99, sales plunged over the first month by 33 percent. It recovered some over the next few weeks, with sales still down by 23 percent, but growing.

John Styron, senior vp, purchasing, Anderson News Corp., said concerning the changes: “One of the things the Bauer move did was it made much needed relief for the other titles to take what are much-needed price increases.”

An interesting thing to look at, is it's really a good move, no matter the decline in sales. First, the price increases - at least with these two mentioned weeklies, was 200 percent. So when you consider the now 23 percent loss in sales, they're not losing revenue.

From an advertisers way of looking at it, it's also a profitable move. While less people are seeing their ads, if they aren't willing to pay $2.99 for their magazines, they probably aren't going to buy what they advertise either. Essentially they're getting rid of dead weight.

If readers go back to the levels before the price increases, they're probably going to get a higher income customer, which will make it a winner for everyone involved.

Celebrity news is one of the few ongoing growth areas in the print industry. Unless something extraordinary happens, that should continue on.

With Bauer being more dependent on newstand sales than most of their competitors, makes it good news for them, as they should perform better, even after the price increases they are planning to make in the near future.

Most of the companies increased circulation over their rate base during 2007, even for those that have already increased prices. Obsession with everything celebrity isn't going to go away anytime soon.